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Two things I'd like to say if I do get to come to AOTA - which may
happen but probably won't -<br>
<br>
1) Upcoming event, by C-U Citizens for Peace and Justice:<br>
<br>
<b>Free</b> screening and discussion of <b>"The House I Live
In"</b>, a film about the <b>War on Drugs,</b><br>
on <b>Tuesday, Feb. 5th, at 7:30PM</b><br>
at the Art Theater in downtown Champaign<br>
<br>
Hear Michelle Alexander, author of <i>The New Jim Crow</i>,
and David Simon, creator of The Wire, reveal how we ended up here.<br>
Hear people in more than twenty states tell how the War on
Drugs ruined their lives and the lives of their loved ones.<br>
Listen to inspiring activists tell us how we end this war<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
2) Reading an article (~700 words, 5 minutes?) by <b>Robert Jensen</b>,<br>
<b>"Torture is Trivial - Compared to Its Other Crimes, That Is"</b>,<br>
<a href="http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/01/18-9">http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/01/18-9</a><br>
<br>
The great American torture debate has been rekindled by the
nationwide release of “Zero Dark Thirty,” the hot new movie about
the CIA’s hunt for Osama bin Laden.<br>
<br>
But all the fussing over whether or not the movie condones,
glorifies, and/or misrepresents torture is trivial, because the
United States’ use of torture after 9/11 is trivial in the context
of larger U.S. crimes.<br>
<br>
Let me be clear: I don’t support torture. I think torture is
immoral. I think government officials who ordered or condoned
torture should be held accountable. Torture crosses a line that
should not be crossed.<br>
<br>
But when I look at the decade since 9/11, torture is hardly the
greatest crime of the U.S. war machine. Since 9/11, the United
States has helped destroy two countries with, at best, sketchy moral
and legal justification. The invasion of Afghanistan was connected
to the crimes of 9/11, at least at first, but quickly devolved into
a nonsensical occupation. The invasion of Iraq, which was clearly
illegal, was a scandal of unprecedented scale, even by the standards
of past U.S. invasions and covert operations.<br>
<br>
While the Iraq war is over (sort of) and the Afghanistan war is
coming to an end (sort of) the United States is also at war in
Pakistan and Iran. The U.S. routinely unleashes murderous drone
strikes in Pakistani territory, and we can assume that covert
operations against Iran, such as the cyber-attack with a powerful
computer virus, continue even though Iran poses no serious threat to
the United States.<br>
<br>
"The problem with “Zero Dark Thirty” is that ... it tells the story
that Americans want to hear: We are an innocent nation that has
earned its extraordinary wealth fair and square."<br>
<br>
All of this was, or is, clearly illegal or of dubious legal status.
None of it makes us more secure in the long run. And if one
considers human beings who aren’t U.S. citizens to be fully human,
there is no moral justification for any of it.<br>
<br>
The problem with “Zero Dark Thirty” is that it ignores all of that,
as do most of the movies, television shows, and journalism about the
past decade. It tells the story that Americans want to hear: We are
an innocent nation that has earned its extraordinary wealth fair and
square. Now we want nothing more than to protect the fruits of our
honest labor while, when possible, extending our superior system to
others. Despite our moral virtue and benevolence, there are
irrational ideologues around the world who want to kill Americans.
This forces our warriors into unpleasant situations dealing with
unpleasant people, regrettable but necessary to restore the rightful
order.<br>
<br>
A less self-indulgent look at the reality of the post-World War II
era suggests a different story. Whether in Latin America, southern
Africa, the Middle East, or Southeast Asia, the central goal of U.S.
foreign policy has been consistent: to make sure that an independent
course of development did not succeed anywhere, out of a fear that
it might spread to the rest of the developing world and threaten
U.S. economic domination. In the Middle East, the specific task has
been to make sure that the flow of oil and oil profits continues in
a fashion conducive to U.S. interests.<br>
<br>
This is not is a defense of terrorism but rather a consistent
critique of terrorism, whether committed by nation-states or
non-state actors. The solution to the problem is not more terrorism
by one side to counter the terrorism of the other. The solution is
not torture. At this point, there are no easy and obvious
“solutions” available, given the hole into which we’ve dug
ourselves.<br>
<br>
But there are things we can do that would help create the conditions
under which solutions may emerge, ways to support real democracy
around the world and a just distribution of resources. The first
step is for those with more wealth and power to tell the truth about
how that wealth was accumulated and how that power has been used.<br>
<br>
<b>The real problem with “Zero Dark Thirty” is not that it takes
artistic license with some of the facts about torture. The film’s
more profound failure is that by reinforcing the same old story
about American innocence, it helps obscure the larger truths we
don’t want to face about ourselves.</b><br>
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